The southern Adelaide electorate of Boothby covers coastal suburbs from Brighton south to Marino, extending inland to the edge of the coastal plain at Myrtle Bank and the hills at Belair, Eden Hills, Bellevue Heights and Flagstaff Hill. The seat’s Liberal lean is softened by the area around the defunct Tonsley Park Mitsubishi plant, the only part of the electorate with below average incomes and above average ethnic diversity. It has existed without interruption since South Australia was first divided into electorates in 1903, at which time it was landlocked and extended north into the eastern suburbs. Coastal areas were acquired when the neighbouring electorate of Hawker was abolished in 1993.

Boothby was held by Labor for the first eight years of its existence, and it remained a contested seat until the Menzies government came to power in 1949. This began a long-term trend to the Liberals which peaked in the 1970s, when margins were consistently in double digits. The seat’s member from 1981 until 1996 was Steele Hall, former Premier and figurehead of the early 1970s breakaway Liberal Movement. A trend to Labor became evident after the election of the Howard government in 1996, with successive swings recorded over the next five elections. The swing that occurred amid the otherwise poor result of the 2004 election was particularly encouraging for Labor, and raised their hopes at both the 2007 and 2010 elections. On the former occasion, Right powerbrokers recruited what they imagined to be a star candidate in Nicole Cornes, a minor Adelaide celebrity and wife of local football legend Graham Cornes. However, Cornes was damaged by a series of disastrous and heavily publicised media performances, and was only able to manage a swing of 2.4% compared with a statewide result of 6.8%. Perhaps reflecting a suppressed vote for Labor, the seat swung 2.2% in their favour at the 2010 election, compared with a statewide result of 0.8%. However, that still Labor 0.8% short of a win they had desperately hoped for to buttress losses in Queensland and New South Wales. With the seat off Labor’s target list in 2013, Southcott enjoyed a comfortable victory on the back of a 6.5% swing, which was 1.0% above the statewide par. Labor’s candidate in both 2010 and 2013 was Annabel Digance, who is now running in the seat of Elder for the March 15 state election.

Boothby has been held since 1996 by Andrew Southcott, who first won preselection at the age of 26 ahead of Robert Hill, the leading factional moderate in the Senate. The Right had reportedly built up strength in local branches with a view to unseating its bitter rival Steele Hall, and turned its guns on Hill as a “surrogate” when denied by Hall’s retirement. Unlike Hill, who went on to become government leader in the Senate, Southcott has led a fairly low-key parliamentary career, taking until after the 2007 election defeat to win promotion to Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, Apprenticeships and Training. After standing by Malcolm Turnbull in the December 2009 leadership vote, Southcott was demoted by a victorious Tony Abbott to parliamentary secretary, a position he has retained in government. Southcott’s preselection at the 2010 election was challenged by former state party president Chris Moriarty, following disquiet in the party over his fundraising record. However, Moriarty was heavily defeated, his challenge reported losing steam when Kevin Rudd’s first bid to return to the Labor leadership came to a head in February 2012.

The pumped storage makes use of a volcanic crater for its lower reservoir and should come online on El Hierro this year.

Apparently El Hierro started off with the idea of self-sufficiency — they import and burn a lot of dries to run their desal plants — but now they are going to cut this very sharply and aim for full energy self-sufficiency. Their fleet of vehicles will go electric and get charged from the near carbon-neutral grid and they are going the PVand solar water heating route.

The baggers brew up their schemes in their blue bedecked boardrooms
The sweet scent of seduction stimulating their m.o.
They’re moving in time to the chance of a killing
Where their practiced eyes are twinkling, eyeing the big dough
:- (
The carpet baggers heed their calling:
“We’ve got to get in to pig out
We’ve got to get in to pig out
We’ve got to get in to pig out”
:- (
There’s only one direction in the faces that I see
It’s inward to their wallets, where their hearts care to be
Like in the Merchant of Venice, Shylocks one, two and three
They’re drawn by my magnet, guided democracy
:- (
The carpet baggers heed their calling:
“We’ve got to get in to pig out
We’ve got to get in to pig out
We’ve got to get in to pig out”
:- (
Well-manicured conmen are waiting for their chance
To take advantage of the day, when making things goes down the spout
Opportunity beckons, their profits will enhance
It’s the bottom of a staircase that spirals out of sight
:- (
The carpet baggers heed their calling:
“We’ve got to get in to pig out
We’ve got to get in to pig out
We’ve got to get in to pig out”
:- (
Farewell to Ford n’ Holden, and alas to Ardmona
We’ll see you on the other side, when the fire sale really starts
The unions will be crushed, no workers will be donors
It’ll be like an Ol’ Dixieland slave-mart
:- (
The carpet baggers heed their calling:
“We’ve got to get in to pig out
We’ve got to get in to pig out
We’ve got to get in to pig out”

I think that Qld is VERY volatile and could swing just as harshly against the Libs as they did Labor. These are the issues that I think are affecting voters:

1. Hospitals – remember that under JOH Qld still had a first hospital system PUBLIC system. There is real fear about its loss

2. Bikie laws – 10% in Redcliffe for the bikie guy. That is actually pretty bloody huge for a single issue candidate, given we can assume that 80% of the greens (civil liberty issue) and 50% of the Labor voters hate the laws

3. The economy is in trouble since mining is in trouble

4. Electricity princes have gone up and it is not being sheeted home to the Carbon Tax

6. Public Transport is barely affordable and indeed prohibitive if you are part time on a low wage – ie PT might cost you $15.50 or your first hour or more of your shift.

7. Public service cuts have made many small businesses fail in inner city areas

That result was a serious indictment of the electoral system in Queensland.

Exactly. Which is why it is (a) wrong of people to use the number of seats Labor holds in Queensland as an indicator of anything to do with Labor’s popularity or otherwise (they can use the primary vote, of course) and (b) perfectly possible that the next election could produce another disproportionate result (for one party or the other).

That result was a serious indictment of the electoral system in Queensland. Getting 8% of the seats having received (from memory) about 26% of the two party preferred vote is a major fairness issue.

If ever there were a case for proportional representation, QLD would be it.

I don’t know – proportional representation always seems to me to be somewhat dependant on having a nice big sample size, and having enough seats to apportion representation widely. It might work at a national level, but at a state level it seems like it’d be pulling from a little too small a pool.

Maybe that’s not really an issue, but it does make me a bit uncomfortable.

I had simply taken your braggadocio on the matter along with my own lack of recollection of anyone speaking up recently – the latter I consider insufficient by itself – that they hadn’t. Now I find out you’ve just been making it up and don’t actually know.

About this blog

William Bowe is a doctoral candidate with the University of Western Australia’s Discipline of Political Science and International Relations. He has been running the electoral studies blog The Poll Bludger since January 2004, independently until September 2008 and thereafter with Crikey.